His gaze holds me as I lean forward, pressing my lips against his. With a gentle laziness, his tongue caresses the contours of my mouth. As we exchange slow kisses, I feel him harden, pressed against my stomach. My body pulses in response, though the kisses don’t change at first. They remain just as slow and tender, even as I feel my restraint straining within me with each breath, an underlying urgency to the situation rising.

I did as he asked on the boat and didn’t kiss him farewell, and now I want my reward. I want him all.

My hand grabs a fistful of hair at the back of his neck and I pull him towards me.

‘Thorn …’ The low moan rises from his throat and shatters the remnants of my resolve.

I roll my hips towards his, only for a tremble to quake through me as I brush against his hard cock. Yet rather than responding the way I need him to, his body tenses as he backs away, an expression of concern on his face.

‘We shouldn’t.’

‘Yes,’ I say with more certainty than I have felt about anything I can ever remember, ‘we should.’

He still doesn’t move. ‘Three days. You were unconscious for three days,’ he says instead.

‘And now I am back, given a chance to live.’ As I wonder at his reticence, my thoughts flash to Estel’s sister’s pregnancy. ‘I have a tonic,’ I tell him. ‘Something I took in the slums, if that’s what you’re worried about?’

A low, raw growl reverberates from his throat.

‘No,’ he says shortly. ‘That wasn’t my concern⁠—’

‘Then show me. Make me forget that anything outside of this room even exists. Make me forget it all. You can do that, right?’

The switch is immediate. His lips find mine and his hands tangle in my hair, pulling me on top of him with urgency.

I move my hand down, stroking the head of his cock teasingly. I pull away from his lips and look into his eyes, a smile tugging at my lips. ‘Unless, of course, you don’t want to fuck me, Kyor? Which would be very disappointing, because I have a very particular itch to scratch, and if you’re not willing to, then perhaps I⁠—’

With one smooth motion he flips me onto my back, pinning me down with some delicious forearms. ‘Don’t you dare finish that sentence,’ he growls, eyes flashing.

My smirk widens. He’s played right into my hands.

‘Then I’m yours, Kyor.’ I lean up and kiss him lightly. ‘Fucking own it.’

When his mouth lands on mine, I pour all the yearning and fervour that burns within me into the kiss. The feeling is something feral and fierce that I want to revel in. His hands move across my body, glancing over my breasts, kneading, stroking, and caressing before pointedly continuing down to the apex of my legs. His fingers graze lightly over my swollen clit – teasing it – before he strokes those clever fingers of his against my opening.

‘Fucking hell, Thorn,’ he groans low. ‘You’re soaked.’

‘Can you blame me?’ I gasp as my own hand slips down his stomach. He’s the reason I’m so wet. Just the knowledge of how hard he is is enough to have me drenched. I moan with anticipation as I finally take hold of him, curling my fingers around his girth. I need him in me, but I also need so much more than that.

There’s no way I can reach fully around the thickness of his cock with one hand, but the other is too busy gripping the hair at the base of his neck. Still, the groan that rattles from his lips is confirmation that what I’m doing is good enough for now.

‘Oh Gods,’ he gasps. ‘Gods, yes.’ The sound of his voice causes my inner walls to clench and tighten.

I’m well aware that twice now he’s left me shattered and breathless, but this time it needs to be both of us. I need him to let go too.

His eyes lock on mine as he pushes a finger into me and then, with a moan, a second, causing me to gasp.

‘Have I told you that you are the most beautiful thing I have ever encountered?’ he whispers.

‘Today? No.’

He laughs as he kisses down the side of my neck and it’s there again – that smile he keeps hidden from the world. The one that causes my heart to stutter. That smile is the undoing of me, just as much as his fingers and mouth and every other part of his rock-hard body.

His kisses continue, tracing the line along my collarbone before lowering further still. He slips my nipple into his mouth and my body responds, lapping up every sensation, but it’s not enough. It won’t be enough until I shatter him the way he’s done to me, until we break together and reform into something else. Something stronger.

In one sweeping movement, I rock my hips and roll him back on the bed so that I’m straddling him. He raises an eyebrow in question.

‘It’s my turn to take control,’ I say with a grin.

His eyes glint as he relaxes back into the pile of pillows. ‘You don’t have to try to take it all,’ he murmurs.

Just the thought of finally exploring his body in full is enough to have me on the edge, but I resist the urge to go straight for the prize. Instead, I start with my hands, sweeping up and over that magnificent torso of his, and then I let my mouth follow their path.

As I place my lips against his chest, a shudder rolls through his body and his eyes close. A satisfied smile takes hold of my face. I didn’t realise how much I wanted to do this until now.

I take my time, kissing a line down his body until I reach his cock, where I run my tongue over the head and savour the low groans that reverberate from him as I taste the precum already beading there.

His hips buck. ‘Thorn … Gods, Thorn!’ His moans turn into a gasp as I take him in my mouth, stretching my jaw to allow for all his thickness. ‘Fuck!’

He’s probably right that I can’t take him all, but I’m sure as hell going to try. As my mouth lowers down his length, his hips rock back and forth, pushing him deeper and deeper into my throat. The movements are slow and controlled, but with the guttural sound he allows free, I feel myself getting wetter and wetter. The memory of the way he stretched me – filled me – is at the forefront of my mind, but no matter how much I want him in me, I need to first feel him unravel the way he’s unravelled me before. The pace of his thrusting quickens and I speed up my movements to match, taking more and more of him each time, eager to help him explode. But just as I feel the shudders rising through him, he grabs my hair with both hands and gently pulls me up and off him.

‘As good as that is – and it is – I need to be in you. Now,’ he demands.

I don’t argue. I can’t. I’m fresh out of reasons why he shouldn’t pound me in two.

My entire body is burning with need as he flips me onto my back and pushes my knees apart. He could bind me to the bed and keep me strapped there for all eternity and I don’t think I’d object. For a split second, his eyes lock on mine, and I want nothing more than to lose myself within them, but then the tip of his cock presses against my opening.

‘Ky …’ My neck arches back as the ecstasy of that initial stretch leaves me grappling for air.

‘How the fuck do you make me want you so much?’ he groans as his tongue rakes my mouth.

‘It’s mutual,’ I moan.

‘Fuck!’

I swallow back a whimper as he pushes me further open, slowly inching deeper and deeper. I love how well he fits in me. Know how phenomenal that tightness is for both of us. The sensations he’s producing are so overwhelming that I can barely breathe, and when he adds in a caress with his static magic, it’s enough to make me want to scream his name. I try as hard as I can to swallow it down.

‘Don’t you dare,’ he growls. ‘Let me hear every fucking sound, Rose.’ I’m not sure I even have a choice as the air rushes from my lungs. I groan loudly and he grinds further into me. ‘Gods, Thorn, you feel so fucking perfect. This, you. Everything. I’m claiming it now.’

I can’t stop the gasps and moans that rise from my throat, born from every animal instinct within me as he slides in and out of me with perfect, measured control. My walls tighten with every thrust, and my hips move instinctively in time with him. The friction rubs against every nerve inside my body, squeezing me tighter and tighter around his cock. He’s already found that spot. The one that’s going to make me soak him in the most phenomenal release possible.